September 4, 20206 [ Fortune]- As they prepare for a wave of new U.S. natural gas production to power AI data centers or for export overseas, the top pipeline players are quickly buying up their smaller private competitors to consolidate the industry and build out scale.

U.S. pipeline majors are buying smaller midstream firms to lock in gas gathering, processing, and long-haul capacity as output is set to feed AI data centers and LNG exports.
 
This week Oneok paid $4.42 billion for Brazos Midstream’s Permian assets (700 miles of gathering lines and 1.2 Bcf/d of processing), after Williams bought Momentum Midstream for $5.5 billion and Western Midstream paid $1.6 billion for Brazos’s Delaware Basin plants.
 
DOE-linked outlook in the piece: U.S. gas could rise another 35% by 2050 to 150 Bcf/d, with LNG build-out concentrated on the Texas–Louisiana Gulf Coast and data-center demand clustering in the same states.
 
Bottlenecks that have pushed Permian gas to negative prices are being targeted by new pipes such as Oneok’s 450-mile Eiger Express (Permian to Houston, 2028; capacity raised from 2.5 to more than 3.5 Bcf/d).
 
Oneok is funding Brazos with a $9 billion Apollo stake ($4 billion for the deal, $5 billion to cut debt) after earlier buys of Magellan (crude and refined products), EnLink (gas in Texas, Louisiana, Oklahoma), and Medallion.

 
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